I Make Paper Come To Life

My name is David Landis and I’m an artist, graphic designer and author. I am also the creator of the Desktop Gremlins website where you can download and build free papercraft projects!

One dark and stormy night (literally) in 2008, while drifting off to sleep, I made the decision to practice my drawing skills more often in the coming months. As the glow of lightning danced around the room and thunder echoed in my ears, a vision of an octopus swam into my imagination as a possible subject for my future drawing exercises. But more important than the plan to draw the creature, was the spark of an idea that the art would somehow stand itself up in a vertical position—illustration, form, and function combining into a tangle of paper craft tentacles. Groggily, I climbed out of bed and sketched the idea to paper before going to sleep.

The next morning I looked at my sketch, and even in it’s crude form, I could feel magic within it—this octopus wanted to come to life in three-dimensional form. So I set to work (sketching, testing, building, re-building) until my super-easy-to-build papercraft octopus was born.

After completing this first project, more characters entered my imagination – demanding to be unleashed. Working during my nights and weekends, I eventually launched a website called Desktop Gremlins – a fun destination for my growing audience to download my papercraft work.

In the years that followed, other amazing opportunities revolving around my unique form of easy-to-build paper craft, bubbled to the surface. As my work was being downloaded from the internet by people all over the globe, I started teaching art classes to young people, I published two books, went on a road show to inspire school children to develop their OWN amazing ideas, and I am now super proud to announce that my next book will be released by SCHOLASTIC in early 2017.

More info: desktopgremlins.com